Building a Houseboat

[loreoff]

Hi all, I am building a house boat with solar panels on the roof. i am looking at 500-1000 watt system using 250 Watt 24 volt panels, with 12 volt 460ah batteries (4ea 6volt 215ah batteries in series/ parallel). charge controller that i am looking at is Intronics Power MPPT75HV Solar Panel Charge Controller (made in usa) that should be sufficient to handle the wattage and have room for upgrade in the future.

[Sunking]

Hi all, I am building a house boat with solar panels on the roof. i am looking at 500-1000 watt system using 250 Watt 24 volt panels, with 12 volt 460ah batteries (4ea 6volt 215ah batteries in series/ parallel). charge controller that i am looking at is Intronics Power MPPT75HV Solar Panel Charge Controller (made in usa) that should be sufficient to handle the wattage and have room for upgrade in the future.

Huge mistake. Get out of that 12 volt battery box you are trapped in before it is too late.

Never ever use parallel battery strings unless you have to. Unless you need more than 4000 AH, then you never need to parallel batteries. If you need 460 AH batteries, then buy 460 AH cells. A real good candidate is a Rolls S-600 a 6 volt 450 AH battery. You would need 4 of them and should last 5 to 7 years with TLC. Do it your way and you will be replacing the batteries in 2 to 3 years at best.

Second huge mistake is the charge controller as it only have a max 80 Voc input. That means you wil have to wire all your panels in parallel which is a horrible and expensive mistake.
You will be using copper wire as big as your wrist between the panels and CC costing you a fortune. You want a CC with a minimum 150 Voc input that will allow you to wire your panels in series using much smaller less expensive wire and no combiners or fuses which are EXPENSIVE. Lookj at something like a Morningstar Tri-Star 60 amp MPPT or use the best a Midnite Solar Solar Classic 200. You will thank me later once you learn the details.

[loreoff]

HouseBoat

i need to use 12v for lights, electronics, refer and bow thruster. its a waste going to a 24v battery bank and then using a dc to dc converter to bring voltage back to 12v.
The distance from panels to controller will be less than 15 feet.The distance from the controller to the batteries will about 5 feet max. The houseboat is 35 feet long and the house is 21 feet. I can understand that you want high voltage and low amperage when running long wires like at houses. You want to use the largest gauge wire when running hundreds of feet of cable.

[KRenn]

Huge mistake. Get out of that 12 volt battery box you are trapped in before it is too late.

Never ever use parallel battery strings unless you have to. Unless you need more than 4000 AH, then you never need to parallel batteries. If you need 460 AH batteries, then buy 460 AH cells. A real good candidate is a Rolls S-600 a 6 volt 450 AH battery. You would need 4 of them and should last 5 to 7 years with TLC. Do it your way and you will be replacing the batteries in 2 to 3 years at best.

Second huge mistake is the charge controller as it only have a max 80 Voc input. That means you wil have to wire all your panels in parallel which is a horrible and expensive mistake.
You will be using copper wire as big as your wrist between the panels and CC costing you a fortune. You want a CC with a minimum 150 Voc input that will allow you to wire your panels in series using much smaller less expensive wire and no combiners or fuses which are EXPENSIVE. Lookj at something like a Morningstar Tri-Star 60 amp MPPT or use the best a Midnite Solar Solar Classic 200. You will thank me later once you learn the details.

Didn't you run off and retire to Panama and open up a banana and coconut stand?

[Mike90250]

1_ have you priced the cost of wire from the batteries - bridge - bow thruster ?

2_ on a houseboat, flat roof top panels are unlikely to generate more than 60% of nameplate power, do to heat and off-axis aim.

3_ if you want to stay with 12v, build your battery bank up from 4v or 6 v batteries, into a series string, avoid parallel banks of batteries

http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html

[Sunking]

i need to use 12v for lights, electronics,

Does not make a bit of difference. You just use 4 or 6 volt cells of the appropriate Amp Hour capacity. 6 volt cells can be had up to 900 AH, 4 volt cells up to 1800 AH, and 2 volt cells up to 4000 AH.

As for charge controllers again no problem as any quality CC can operate up yo 150 Voc on a 12 volt battery and a few that can operate up to 250 Voc input.

All you gotta do is get out of that 12 volt box your mind is trapped in. YOu go using 12 volt batteries in parallel, and you will be replacing them frequently.

[loreoff]

Building a Houseboat

thank you Sunking, I have decided to go with a 24 volt system, using 6v batteries in series, 6v 215ah x4 = 24v x 215ah = 5160w

[Sunking]

6v 215ah x4 = 24v x 215ah = 5160w

FWIW that is not a correct statement. I know what you meant, but wrong none the less.

Volts x Amps = Watts
Volts x Amp Hours = Watt Hours

So 6 volts x 215 Amps Hours = 5160 Watt Hours (5.16 Kwh) of reserve capacity) Not a lot of power, but enough to give you roughly 1000 watt hours (1 Kwh) per day. To support those batteries will require a panel wattage of 500 to 750 watts with a MPPT controller of 20 to 30 amps respectively.

[loreoff]

Building a Houseboat

thank u sunking, that's what i needed, will that be a 20% dod ?

[loreoff]

Building a Houseboat

2 ea Renogy 250W Monocrystalline Solar Panels wired in series
1 ea Renogy 20Amp MPPT Charge Controller 100VDC Input w/ meter
4 ea Gc 215ah 6v in series ( i know GC lol testing)
1 ea Renogy 500W Off-Grid Inverter or 1000w ( depends on start up on small refer)
1 ea Renogy 20' MC4 Adaptor Kit AWG 10

if this checks out i will use this as a template for my refer

all other electric will be 12 volt for lights and electronic equipment powered by engine when running


thank u

[Sunking]

Loreff if you are going to run the motor for the big stuff, then you have no need for solar, just use the motor-alternator to charge your batteries. Your motor-alternator can do more in an hour than solar can do in a week. Save yourself the cash and headaches.

[loreoff]

Building a Houseboat

I think u misunderstand, the engine is a Mercury 90hp 2 cycle, the engine not made to charge a large bank of batteries and it will be running only when moving the boat. I may be at 1 location for months and i don't want to run my engine everyday for several hours. When i do move my boat i will have radar, chart-plotter,depth sounder and navigation lights (only at night) on. The solar will be for a small 4.5 cf refrigerator and maybe for some Led lighting.